In the morning I drive to Sausalito, a small town on the other side of the water across San Francisco. I remembered from years ago that there is a ferry over the water and that seems a much better idea than parking somewhere in the city. I park by the pier and see that the boat leaves in two hours, so I go to a coffee place and have breakfast and a cappuccino. Around eleven o’clock I go back to the pier and get a ticket for the ferry.
The ferry to San Francisco is very nice. It goes by the Golden Gate Bridge and slowly passes by Elcatraz, the prison island. It takes about an half hour to cross the water and gives a great view of the skyline of San Fran. The weather is clear skies with sunshine again, so it’s very nice to be on a boat. When I arrive in San Francisco, I take one of the famous cable cars up the hills to see a bit of the city. It’s nice to hang out of the car while it’s climbing the hills of San Francisco. When I’m at the top of a hill I get off and walk my way back via a different street to the pier. Walking downhill is nice and easy. Back at the pier I take a normal tram, because the tourist busses are quite expensive and you can take a normal tram for only $2,75. When I’m in the city center I get off the tram and walk around again.
While I walk through the streets with high building I think back of the movie sets last weekend and realize what great a job they did building the sets. The movie sets look so much like the real buildings, only they where build with wood instead of stones and concrete. And of course these streets are filled with people and cars. In one street I see an Illy coffee place, one of my favorite coffee brands, so I sit down to have coffee and something to eat. It’s nice to visit this city, but after this journey I prefer Los Angeles over San Francisco. I think because it’s much bigger and feels more real than the quite touristic San Fran. In any case I also enjoy this visit and at the end of the afternoon I take the ferry back to Sausalito. What I didn’t mention this morning is that I think that Sausalito is an Italian town by origin, at least it sounds and looks a lot like Italy and I heard several people speak Italian. The coast looks quite a bit like the coast of Italy. Back in Sausalito I drive to the Golden Gate bridge viewing point to take some nice pictures of the bridge with the Skyline of San Francisco in the back.
In the evening I drive to Bodega Bay where I have planned to meet a friend from seven years ago. Exactly at the same time we arrive at the meeting point. Just when I park my car, Dawn arrives in her Jeep. It’s so cool to see her again after such a long time. We drive to a campsite near the coast and stay there for the night. After dinner in a local fish restaurant we build a fire at the campsite and talk until it’s late. We plan to do some hiking in Red Woods National Park tomorrow morning. This weekend I’m at half of the journey and I’ve traveled just over half of the distance, so I’m right on schedule and will probably take it a bit slower from here. I plan to do one day of work this weekend to catch up with everything and then travel to Oregon on Monday.
